DHCF Helping D.C Residents

Jan.17,2018

On December 4, 2017, the District of Columbia’s Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF) https://dhcf.dc.gov released a grant funding notice with applications to be submitted by January 5, 2018, seeking to improve access to healthcare. This funding initiative is going to link residents living in homeless shelters or in public housing directly to telehealth services by providing $150,000 for two grants totaling $75,000 each.

D.C’s DHCF administers the Medicaid program and provides health care services to children, adults, elderly, and persons with disabilities who have low-income. Over 270,000 District resident receive healthcare coverage through DHCF’s Medicaid, CHIP, and alliance programs.

Funds may be used to not only purchase or implement technology but also to support staff, training, and to obtain legal advice or other resources needed to use telehealth in more efficient and effective ways.

The hope is that residents will able to improve their health and wellness and reduce the use of the emergency department for low acuity conditions. This funding may provide a wide range of services and activities as long as the impact to residents of homeless shelters or public housing projects is favorable. The respondents to Request for Applications (RFA) are permitted to sub-grant some of the work listed in the RFA.

Also, DHCF is also currently funding a grant to the “Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients” (CRISP DC). The plan is to develop and implement four HIE tools to support care coordination:

A patient care overview presented as an on demand web-based document will be accessible to eligible professionals and hospitals that displays both clinical and non-clinical data for a selected patient

An electronic Clinical Quality Measurement Tool and Dashboard that aggregates and analyzes data captured through Continuity of Care Documents submitted by providers and hospitals to calculate performance against quality measures and benchmarks for their patient population

An analytical patient population dashboard accessible by providers, hospitals, and administrators for patient panel management

For more information, email Da Shawn Groves Healthcare Reform and Innovation Administration at HealthIT@dc.gov or call 202-442-8956. To view the “Request for Applications Document, go to Google then search RFA#DHCF-Telehealth-2017-B. Then click on “Shelters and Public Housing Telehealth grant pdf-dhcf-DC.gov.”